April 2013

December 2008

December 23, 2008

After my post about getting back into a proper fitness regime, I have to admit that the festive season has almost ruined my well laid out plans. Too many functions (including our emediaIT Christmas Party yesterday), too much eating and not enough sleep. I must however mention that my pool volleyball has improved greatly. Normally the next few days including Christmas follow that same formula, but this year I am determined to do it differently.

December 22, 2008

We had our emediaIT Christmas Party for 2008 on the 22nd of December, mainly due to deadlines/pressures on various projects, but in the spirit of the festive season we wanted to give a little back first as well.

We spent the morning before the party down at the Animal Welfare, taking dogs for walks, playing with puppies and delivering some much needed donations in terms of food and other supplies. I love animals, especially dogs and while it was great giving them a bit of excercise and attention, it was really difficult not wanting to take them all home with us. This one in particular...

....since he looks a lot like one of our puppies at home (Junior).

The Animal Welfare takes care of a huge amount of animals and they are all beautiful, loveable and in need of a safe and caring home. If you are thinking of a pet, seriously consider coming here or Save a Pet first as in most cases this is their last chance.

December 21, 2008

Last year emediaIT assisted Desmond Westenberg with his plans to feed and help the needy during Christmas. This year Desmond took things a step further and organised an incredible day for the 60+ children of the Sinethemba Children's Care Centre in Port Elizabeth.

Sinethemba has been running for many years now and is a home for abandoned street children of all ages. These children literally have nowhere else to go and if it was not for Sinethemba they would most likely not have even survived. Sinethemba provides a caring environment with positive influences and these children now have a chance at life.

emediaIT was fortunate enough to assist and donate once more and with the help of other volunteers, donations from other local companies and friends of Desmond's were able to give the children a day of much needed joy leading up to Christmas. I went down to Sinethemba to drop off some of the educational items emediaIT donated and as soon as I jumped out of the car a little girl...

...jumped into my arms saying "Dada". Desmond organised a jumping castle and each child received a packet of sweets and chocolates, a gift with their name on it from Santa himself (who was boiling in the heat) and then enjoyed a Streetwise Two from KFC. The home was also given some footballs and cricket sets which I am sure will get used a great deal.

It really was difficult to leave, but to see the happiness on the children's faces was really special. We have spoken to Sinethemba about continued assistance, as they are in great need of basic items including food and clothes. I hope that we made a difference to the lives of the children there, albeit for only a day. The sad part is that there are so many other children on the streets and other similar homes which need help as well.

We take so much for granted in our lives and rarely fully understand just how fortunate we are. We have an obligation to assist organisations like Sinethemba. Every little bit counts.

December 11, 2008

3 days of gym, eating healthily (well more healthily) and drinking loads of water in a row, which in the last few months/years has definitely been the exception rather than the norm. I can honestly say that this is the best I have felt in ages. I have more energy, more focus and am more productive.

It's probably been around 3 or 4 year's since I was what I could call pretty fit. A good friend and colleague of mine and I used to destroy ourselves 6 days a week on "The Rock" all body weights workout, followed by a super circuit and then some cardio. Not Ironman material I know, but we were happy.

If I look back on those times now and at the type of hours we were putting in at work (which often still happens now, but not to quite the same extremes, i.e 90+ hour weeks), it really was only possible because of 2 things, stubborness and our bodies and minds being able to handle a large and sustained workload. Even now, I really believe that one of the main reasons we are able to maintain long periods of high pressure work is because of the strength and endurance we built way back then.

emediaIT has grown in leaps and bounds in the last 2 years and that growth looks set to continue in 2009 so the need for me to "be the best I can be" is greater than ever. I've given myself 3 months to get back to our previous levels of fitness, but it's going to be a long (and probably painful) road back...

UPDATE 10/12/2008: Response received on LLBLGen Pro Forum post regarding FieldMappedOnManyToManyPatternsetting. The suggested new element may be included in LLBLGen Pro v3.0, but it is not guaranteed. For now we will use HideManyToManyRelationsOnCreation set to True and unhide and rename when necessary. Updated Screenshot.

UPDATE 18/03/2009: Updated to include TdlEmitTimeDateInOutPutFiles set as False. Updated Screenshot.

These are the Preferences I have just changed to now. It's not meant to be a silver bullet, as there are settings people would prefer otherwise I am sure. Obviously changing Preferences in existing Projects may cause issues, at the very least build errors, but sometimes it is worthwhile in terms of long term producitivity/ease of use.

LLBLGen Pro really allows you a great deal of flexibility so play around with the Preferences and see what works for you and the project on which you're working.

December 08, 2008

These templates allow you to generate code for Linq to Sql using any LLBLGen Pro
project. You can use the LLBLGen Pro's designer to create and maintain a project
and generate code directly from the designer using these templates. This allows
you to use the powerful catalog refreshing capabilities as well as the other
features of the LLBLGen Pro designer.

Linq to Sql's code generator isn't
template based nor does it split up the classes in one class-per-file. These
templates allow you to alter the generated code and also give you one class per
file.